When he heard his name, Mike Trout jumped to his feet, as a weight lifted off his shoulders and a two-hour wait ended.

Trout, a heavy-hitting outfielder from Millville High in Cumberland County, hugged members of his family, then bounded out of the faux-dugout in the MLB Network studio in Secaucus. On a nearby stage, baseball commissioner Bud Selig waited with a jersey from the Los Angeles Angels, who selected Trout with the 25th pick Tuesday at the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.

"Definitely nerve-racking," Trout said of the experience. "Me and my family were talking to each other. It was crazy."

He plans to forgo a scholarship to East Carolina and turn pro. The Trouts worked with adviser Craig Landis during the draft process, a winding road of all-star camps and extra batting practice that ended Tuesday night.

As expected, with the first selection the Washington Nationals chose Stephen Strasburg, the 20-year-old right-handed phenom pitcher from San Diego State University, a mega-prospect armed with both an incendiary fastball and an incendiary agent, Scott Boras. Contract negotiations between the two sides are expected to drag on throughout the summer.

With the 29th pick, the Yankees selected Slade Heathcott, a 6-foot-1, 196-pound outfielder from Texas High in Texarkana, Texas. The Mets did not have a first-round selection.

This year, MLB moved its draft into the primetime television spot with hopes that it would resemble the highly rated drafts of the NFL and NBA. The draft was aired live on the MLB Network, but the only player in attendance was Trout, New Jersey's Gatorade Player of the Year.

His draft prospects rose after he moved to the outfield as a senior, and showed off his range and 6-foot-2, 205-pound frame. Playing center field, Trout feasted on South Jersey pitching this season. He hit .531, had a 1.296 slugged percentage and cracked a state-record 18 home runs.

Pro scouts started to notice.

"It's his combination of strength, size, speed," said Millville High baseball coach Roy Hallenbeck. "A lot of prospects have some of those qualities. I think what's so intriguing to most of the scouts is that he seems to have all of them."

Recent months have whirled by. To work out for scouts, Trout traveled across the country. "It's still been very hectic and busy with the press and calls from your adviser and teams and scouts, and so on and so forth," said Jeff Trout, Matt's father and a former minor-leaguer in the Minnesota Twins organization.

On the biggest day of his young life, Mike Trout tried to keep an even keel. He woke up for school around 7:30 a.m. He went to morning classes. He stopped by coach Hallenbeck's classroom to chat for about 20 minutes.

But it's hard to ignore the elephant in the room, especially with teachers and students and everyone else asking about the draft. "I took my mind off it for a little bit until everybody started telling me 'Good luck' and stuff," Trout said. "And then it came on my mind again."

Trout left school at noon, slipped into a navy blue suit, bundled into a car with his family and drove up to Secaucus.

Then he waited.

And waited.

And ...

Forty-five minutes into the draft, MLB Network analyst Harold Reynolds spun around and called out to the dugout. "Mike, how you feeling?" Reynolds asked. "You all right?"

The Trouts smiled and nodded. Then they went back to waiting, a family portrait of nervous energy. Jeff Trout stood up and paced. His wife, Debra, rolled a baseball in her hands. Mike's legs jittered.

Finally, while the Angels were on the clock for the 25th pick, Trout received a text message from his adviser, Landis, offering a head's up: The wait was over.